The Last Song (Best Film Yet?)

     Hey! Today we are going to be talking about one of  my favorites movies of all time... The Last Song!

    

     Our teacher assigned us to pick a film and analyze its camera movements and camera angles throughout the film. My mind went straight to The Last Song. I knew an action movie would have a lot of shots and angles, so I knew that it would be way too challenging and hard for my first time practicing. However, I didn't want a boring movie either that pretty much has a static shot the whole way through. So, the perfect one was The Last song. 

    Just to explain the movie a little bit before I dive into the angles and shots, the movie is a romance/drama. In the movie we are seeing relationships between families, lovers, friends, and it shows us how there is not enough time in the world to be mad at one another, but instead we should learn to forgive and accept. That tomorrow is not always confirmed.  Ronnie ,played by Miley Cyrus, and Jonah, Bobby Coleman, are taken to their dad's place in the summer in a small town in Georgia. While Jonah loves his dad and wants to spend time with him this summer, Ronnie, with all her teenage angst, is still upset towards her father since the divorce. Ronnie learns how to appreciate the small town. She meets new people including her romantic interest. At the end of the summer, Ronnie learns that holding grudges won't do her any favors and she should learn to forgive those who wronged her. We see this character mature and understand some difficult aspects of life more. Overall, it is  a great movie to watch and I would 10/10 recommend. Maybe I'm a bit bias. ;)

    As we all know opening scenes are one of the most important part of  a film. It grabs the audience's attention and introduces them to this new world. Evidently to create this affect you must have great camera movements/angles to truly get the full affect. The first shot you see is a close up shot of a glass tainted window in a church and the reflection shows you that something is going on. It then gives you another close shot of a fire. (Great way to start a film). Then, it uses trucking shots and an overhead shot to show firefighters pulling someone out of the church. Notice how there is no close up for the people, yet they use these far type shots to show this distance between this character and you. Afterwards, we get our first real introduction to the setting.  The director uses a bird's eye view of a car driving through this swampy suburb to a beachy coast, which would end up being Georgia. This would be our establishing shot of our movie as it lets us know our location and time frame.  Throughout this introduction of our movie, the director, Julie Anne Robinson, uses several camera angles and movements such as Trucking shots, bird's eye view, and close ups. While the trucking and bird's eye view shot helps us understand our location, the close up introduces us to our main character of the story, Ronnie Miller. This close up lets us know that she will be our main character. The director uses mid shots to show other characters that are less important like her brother and her mom.

       Later on, we are introduced to Ronnie's father, which as we know she doesn't truly get along with him. In order to introduce this character, the director uses a mid shot and a little bit of a pan to slowly show you this character. A low angle was also used to possibly resemble that his literal potion was higher than the car that was coming or to also show he is strong, which is ironic later on in the film. Mainly throughout the film, the use of mid shots for dialogue and close ups to understand the characters' emotions was used for almost every conversation. We can see the tension or love between characters with these shots. Moreover, I  noticed that every time there was a transition, the director would use bird's eye views, crane shots, and trucking shots. This helped the audience understand that there was a transition and where the new scene was taking place.

    

    Then comes one of my favorite parts! Where Ronnie meets Will Blakelee, played by Liam Hemsworth. I feel that what the director did here truly shows how camera movements can affect the audience and create a whole meaning. We see Ronnie walking and the director uses a smooth trucking shot to follow her along the beach. Then the camera shakes a little and tilts down as Will bumps into her making both of them fall. The smoothness of the trucking shot following her to then being disturbed by the tilting and shaking represents how physically Will knocked her down but it can also be used metaphorically later on. Then, a dolly shot is made to show Ronnie walking away and Will following her and trying to apologize. When the two characters stop to have a conversation, we see a new shot in the film which is the over the should shot. This shot was perfect because you would see the difference of height between the two characters. I think the director did a great job introducing the relationship between these two characters by utilizing these shots.

    

Obviously there are many scenes in the movie and it would take me pages to talk about each camera movement and each scene, so I will only do the most important ones. However, throughout the movie you can tell the shots/movements they would use for types of scenes. For instance, in conversations they would use mid shots, loose close shots, close ups, over the shoulder shots, and static shots. I could tell that almost every time there was a conversation, these shots would be used because they create the best affect while characters are having conversations. Furthermore, there were several shots that were used when transitioning to new scenes. The shots that were used were panning shots, crane shots, bird's eye view, and occasionally a close up on an object. This helps the audience understand that were somewhere else in the film. Moreover, the use of close ups was frequently used, but mainly after the ending of a conversation, to show how these prominent emotions these characters were feeling after a discussion. For instance, in the gif below you can see how the director used a zoom close up to show the emotions of Will after having an irritating conversation with another character.

(I tired to find a better one, but this was the only one I could find.)

  

  Time for the most iconic scene of this whole movie. The first kiss! Unfortunately, before this happened Will and Ronnie went on a date, however, this girl that Will used to have a thing with, goes up to Ronnie and tells her that Will does that date with every girl in the town. This made Ronnie feel upset and didn't want to talk to Will anymore. Just to help you guys understand, we are now at Ronnie's house. Will comes to ask her what's wrong, but she doesn't want to answer the door, so Will decides to stay outside until she does. The director uses a wide shot to show Will in the beach just waiting for her.  Once Ronnie comes out of her house to talk with Will, there was an extreme wide shot. This shows how the characters are physically distant but also emotionally distant. (We see this later on, too) Then, we see a dolly out shot to see Ronnie walking towards the camera and Will behind her trying to understand why she's mad at him. Then Ronnie stops in her tracks and turns to face Will, the director uses an arc shot to change the view of the camera. We then start to see close shots and over the shoulder shots in the conversation, so the audience can understand more about their discussion. We then dolly out again to see Ronnie is leaving. Ronnie has stopped yet again after Will made a comment that made her really irritated. To see this we see a close up and then a dolly out of Ronnie walking towards Will. Right as she's talking and walking to Will, Will comes up to her and interrupts her with a kiss. When this happened, the director uses an arc shot. I believe that this arc shot obviously shows you their surrounding and them, however, I feel that it created a fairytale and almost whimsical feeling. The shot then turns to an Extreme wide shot to show the setting, but also to show how close the characters are now compared to at the beginning of the scene. I feel that the camera movements and shots were truly influential in this scene because they had a lot of metaphorical effects.

    Now, I know it's hard to compete with THAT scene, but there are other worthy scenes in this movie. As I said before, the director uses types of shots to create the effect for the film and make the audience feel something. For instance, Ronnie and Will have another fight again and the director uses an extreme wide shot and they are distant again, physically and emotionally.  Afterwards, once they make up the director did the same thing; an extreme wide shot, but they are holding hands now. There are so many details we don't realize when watching films. Moreover,  the use of close ups is so important. Whether it is to show someone's face and present that they are truly sad or a close up on hand holding to show union between two characters, they show us the emotions and true feeling of these characters.

   

     Finally,  the last scene of the movie. Directors must make sure they do a good job with this scene because it is the last thing their audience will be looking at and that is probably how they will remember the film. In the last scene of the movie, the director uses a wide shot to introduce the setting. We are at the beach in front of Ronnie's house and we see Will standing there. There's a close up of Ronnie's face when she notices that Will is outside. We can tell that she is shocked. They have this sweet and closing conversation. Ronnie than jumps into Will's arm and they use a trucking shot to do this. Afterwards, there is a close up of the two kissing; this creates this intimacy that  the characters were finally able to reach.  Then to end this scene, there is a wide shot to see the characters in each others presence and a crane shot is used to go up and take in the whole scene. The use of the crane shot creates this happy and romantic ending, as the characters are finally at peace and together. (You know how teenagers can be.) Then to really close off the movie you have a bird's eye view of Ronnie getting in the car and leaving the town. This creates a full circle as that was the way we started the film. 

   

     Overall, I had a great time doing this. Not only was I able to watch one of my favorite movies, but I was able to watch it with a new set of eyes. This made me realize how many details are put into films. I always believed this to be a simple film nothing too special, but when trying to see and analyze the camera shots/movements, I realized that it is much more complex than my initial thoughts. Now I can't stop looking at movies, without looking for camera movements and shots! Send help! 

                                                                                                                                     

                                                                                                                                          -Love, Lucy <3

Quote of the day: "Love is fragile. And we're not always it's best caretakers."-Steve Miller